Former U.S. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson speaks at Princeton University

Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks with a reporter in her office in Washington, D.C. on May 2, 2012.
T.J. Kirkpatrick/For the Star-Ledger

PRINCETON — She might say the glass is half empty, rather than half full, but that doesn’t mean she thinks it can’t get fuller in the future.

Former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson was at Princeton University yesterday to explain the “unfinished business of the environmental movement.” A Princeton alumna and also former commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Jackson was on hand as part of a university program to bring prominent environmental leaders to campus.

“Unfinished business is an obligation,” she told the packed room at the university’s Woodrow Wilson School. “It’s an obligation to finish the job for those we promised equality and community health and safety.”

Jackson explained that, on one hand, it may appear the environmental movement has made leaps and bounds during the past five decades that the country has had a federal agency in place specifically to address those concerns. Air pollution is down as much as 60 percent from its 1970s level, depending on which metric is being used, and 90 percent of the country’s citizens have access to water that meets all federal standards, Jackson said.

“But if you change your frame of reference,” she said, “we still have unfinished business.”

Jackson said that studies have shown on some street corners in Newark pedestrians are breathing in more air pollution than would be acceptable in factory settings by government standards. She added that one-third of U.S. residents live downwind of air pollution sources and even balked at the fact that 10 percent of the country is not drinking water that’s up to federal standards.

“Ten percent is not an insignificant amount of people, in the year 2013 — and that doesn’t include people drinking well water,” she said. “People think, ‘Yeah, the air is much better now. We’re done here,’ and we keep moving on to the next big, sexy issue, but by doing that, by failing to highlight the perspective of those who still haven’t seen progress, we’re leaving important coalitions of people out in the cold.”

Part of the problem, she said, is infighting amongst environmentalists on what’s more important. Some would rather focus on conserving what hasn’t yet been spoiled, while others think emphasis should be put on cleaning up what has been polluted; some want to focus locally while others think only a global perspective will do, Jackson said.

Another issue is the idea that, in order to move forward, from an environmental standpoint, the country will have to shed jobs, she said.

“Many people still think environmental progress is costly,” Jackson said. “They think, ‘It’s this or that. It’s jobs or the environment.’ That way of thinking needs to be replaced. We need to design a system that transfers jobs from one sector to another, or from one geographic location to another. We need to look more than a few years down the road.”

“We still want the jobs, we still want the development, but we’re not as dumb anymore.
We want it done in a way that keeps environmental impacts in mind,” she said.

But what Jackson believes to be the key to finishing the job of environmental protection is engaging the local communities that are still being adversely affected.

A native of New Orleans, Jackson said she’s familiar with the devastating impact of the changing environment. After the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and the messy aftermath of the BP oil spill in the area, Jackson said many residents wanted to fight for the integrity of their home environment.

Taking that kind of pride in where you live and feeling compelled to protect that land is something she hopes to see more of throughout the country.

“This is not about ‘Stop everything and get out there and do something,’” she said. “It’s about activating a community base, and getting them behind the issues and seeking true environmental justice.”

“The strength of environmentalism is populism,” Jackson said. “Populism has to be more than a small group. We have to think differently about the top-down solutions and think more about the power that comes from the bottom-up, and how that can be replicated and multiplied.”